


Destruction Follows in His Wake

by BookRookie12 (fanficcornerwriter19)



Series: World Without End [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale is Bad at Being an Angel (Good Omens), Eden - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, I was curious, I'm Sorry, Major Spoilers, Pre-Arrangement, Pre-Fall of the Angels, Samael Is Too But Maybe Not That Bad, Samael and Raphael are decidedly Not Crowley, Spoilers, The Garden of Eden, World War II, because sometimes angels don't know what gender other angels are presenting as, but is mostly tv-series-compliant, could be book-compliant, just that, mind you not in a good way, on basically all of Good Omens, outsider pov, really - Freeform, spoilers for the tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanficcornerwriter19/pseuds/BookRookie12
Summary: Five times the angel of destruction encountered the Principality Aziraphale, and one time he encountered the demon Crowley.Alternatively: Aziraphale, as seen through the eyes of a Heavenly acquaintance.





	Destruction Follows in His Wake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [is it that we are dying?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17135138) by [NeverNooitNiet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverNooitNiet/pseuds/NeverNooitNiet). 
  * Inspired by [Crime & Punishment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525245) by [ImprobableDreams900](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900). 



> I don't know why this is a thing. The influence of ImprobableDreams900's ["Crime & Punishment"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525245/chapters/19541824) is mostly in the aspect that it's an Outsider POV of events we all already know. Mostly it's an exploration of Aziraphale's character through the eyes of someone who's met him from time to time. 
> 
> As for the other fic that inspired this, I used NeverNooitNiet's ["is it that we are dying?"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17135138) in the third section.

** One: Heaven, a little after the Fall **

Samael should not have come home. Heaven was full of angels who looked at him and his light silver-grey wings warily, never mind that the accursed things had been silver-grey since God had created them and Heaven couldn’t be _full_ of angels because _half of them were gone._

He had literally been fishing in his figurative angelic pocket for the gift he was about to give Sariel, her gift a new, welcome weight on his finger, when the shockwave of the Fall sent them both reeling. Her scream had jolted him out of his dizziness and into pursuit. The smell of sulphur and burning cinnamon clung to his clothes and his damned wings even now, and he wanted to tear it out of his corporeal flesh. It _hurt._

He thought of the terror and the guilt in her golden eyes as she Fell and he dove, tucking in his wings to catch up to her. He thought of her hands, which had led him across the universe so often and which had crafted so many stars with him, reaching, and his own, reaching back.

Their fingers had never met again.

Samael closed his eyes and tried to burn the image of the place he now knew to be Hell out of his mind. There were a few clouds of black dust as fallen angels crash-landed, and they had seared Samael’s eyes.

 _Your hair!_ Samael dug his palms into his eyelids—that _hurt—_ as the recollection of her cry flashed through him.

His hair. His fiery red hair, exactly of a shade and texture as hers. His hair was on fire.

He’d tried to put it out. It hadn’t just burned his hands, it had burned _him,_ his essence. That had been any angel’s first ever encounter with hellfire.

Her hands had despaired of reaching him and had instead tried to put out the fire. But she hadn’t Fallen completely, and she couldn’t. All she had been able to do was contain it, so that it didn’t hurt him. His hair would burn for all eternity, but he would not.

Then the call of Gabriel the Messenger sounded through the air, and Samael had done the unthinkable: he had turned his back on Sariel and flown home without her.

He’d been too late anyway. He couldn’t have saved anyone, neither the Fallen from grace nor the fallen in battle. That hadn’t been his area anyway. It was Sariel who had taken lessons from Raphael. At least, he thought bitterly, he’d gotten a front-row seat, borne witness to the raw grief of it all.

Even the sky had mourned, the usually bright blue of Heaven’s spheres burning sunset red as the angels that remained stood forlornly under it. Only Michael and Heylel were left. Very likely the only thing that had prevented the Warrior from falling to the seraph sooner was that Heylel had no idea how to fight. The glow of Michael’s blade as xe brought it down to smite xir brother matched Sariel’s eyes perfectly—or at least Samael thought so, and that was enough.

His ears still rang with the cries of his friends, his playmates, even his siblings, as they tumbled over the walls of Heaven everything about them that said _made by God_ and _loved by God_ was torn away.

More than half the angels, almost exactly half the Host in power, remained, and yet Heaven felt so empty. Evidence of the Fallen was everywhere he looked—open books, discontinued games, empty chairs at empty tables. The gift he’d been unable to give weighed more than it should have in its pouch.

He should not have come home.

Perhaps he was simply in denial, but something kept telling him that maybe if he had just stayed with Sariel, had followed her down to the end, this might not have happened.

“Good day, Samael.”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Good day, Michael.” Unlike most of the other angels, Samael’s eldest sibling didn’t look suspicious of him, for which he was glad.

“You haven’t seen Azrael lately, have you?” Michael asked, still resplendent in xir armour, xir sword hanging from xir belt. Xe looked every bit like something from—from an artwork, long blond hair and bronze skin and both pairs of pristine white wings fanned out impressively behind xir back.

“I think they’re near Alpha Centauri,” Samael answered, feeling a pang, though whether it was at the mention of Azrael, who seemed to be more lost than any of them, or at the mention of his own creation he couldn’t say. Michael nodded and thanked him, then spread xir wings and took off. He watched xir go.

Samael sighed and held his hand out at arm’s length, inspecting the black band of metal fashioned into the shape of a serpent swallowing its own tail that rested on its middle finger.

_You promised me eternity, hope of mine._

The rip in his celestial soul felt the same whether it was her choice or not.

This was God’s will, because it could be nothing else. For what other reason did anything happen? And yet, deep down, there was some small part of Samael that ignored him when he told himself to just mourn for Sariel, and screamed that it was unfair, it was _unjust_ that the Lord look down on Heylel’s rebellion and say, “For this, I no longer love you. For this you are no longer Mine.”

Some of the Fallen angels had done truly atrocious things, but this small part of Samael—truly miniscule, about the size of one strand of his now-flaming hair—wondered in the very vaguest sense of the word, without knowing what it was doing, if all this was simply ignorance. What if, it said, what if this was all some sort of misunderstanding? Possibly, very possibly, if only they’d taken the time to listen and be kind, as God commanded, they wouldn’t be in this mess!

Samael pointedly ignored this part of him.

An angel didn’t doubt his Creator—and despite what _some_ might think, the Power Samael was an angel.

“Excuse me, are you alright?”

“Of course I’m not!” Samael snapped, his huge silver wings flaring to hide him from view. It was too late; everyone knew who those wings belonged to. For some ineffable reason, only Sariel had shared the secondary colour of his wings, and she was _gone_. Worse than gone: Fallen.

Besides, news of what had happened to his hair had spread like—pardoning the metaphor—like wildfire after he’d related the events concerning it. Everyone would know by now. 

At first he thought they were going to talk to him, but they didn’t. They simply perched on Heaven’s outermost wall next to Samael. Their hair was too light to be blond, but too dark to be white, so Samael decided it was white-blond. They were more than a bit pudgy, but that wasn’t much of problem in his mind, and it only made them look kinder.

Samael felt the feather-light brush of a wing against his back. Warmth suffused his very being; no one but Sariel had offered comfort in this way since he was a fledgling. 

“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” he finally said, guiltily.

“That’s alright,” said the angel, cheerfully. They appeared innocent as anything, and though their eyes danced with the kind of enjoyment one gets from life by being incredibly optimistic, they also looked to have an intelligence that shone bright and sharp. 

They didn’t pressure him to talk even after that. They simply sat there until he asked, “Who are you?

“My name is Aziraphale,” they said. “If you were wondering, it’s he, him, and so on.”

“Same goes for me,” said Samael.

“Are you going to tell me your name?”

Samael turned and raised one eyebrow—his eyebrows being the only kind of hair on his head that hadn’t caught fire. “You don’t know who I am?”

“No. Should I?”

“Probably…?” Samael twisted around and saw a secondary pair of wings underneath the pair that Aziraphale was currently using to comfort Samael. Unlike Michael’s, Aziraphale’s secondary pair of wings was smaller than his primary one. “You’re a cherub. You should know.”

“I don’t,” Aziraphale admitted.

“I’m Samael,” Samael told him flatly. Aziraphale only blinked expectantly. “And where have you been these days that you haven’t heard of the power of destruction, with the flaming hair and the grey wings?” He flinched at the sound of his own voice, which had always been harsh and husky, but now had an unkind note in it.

He hoped Aziraphale would forgive him.

“Speaking of, they’re beautiful. And they suit you,” the cherub said, unconcerned, and it took a beat* for Samael to realise that he meant his wings. Possibly his hair, too. “As for your question… in the library? Probably? I’m there most of the time, reading, anyway.”

The power stared at him blankly. “ _Harahel’s_ library?”

“Is there any other library?”

He sputtered. “ _How?_ They’re—notoriously protective of it!”

“Not if you handle the books properly and talk to Harahel nicely,” Aziraphale said, and for once there was note of—sternness, perhaps—in his tone. Samael nodded absently.

“I mean—I’ve never been, but I’ve heard…”

“That doesn’t seem very nice,” the cherub said crisply, his expression barely changing.

“I’m sorry,” the power said abashedly. “I suppose I’m just rather surprised. Harahel didn’t seem like the type…”

“Harahel is my friend,” Aziraphale said, almost pointedly—but not quite. “I’d rather you not talk about them like that. And that’s not why I’m here. If I may ask, why are you here? It sounds awfully lonely to be sitting here by yourself when you’re not alright. Wouldn’t company be nice?”

“What kind of company would I have?” Samael asked darkly. “My partner Fell.”

“No wonder you’re not alright,” the cherub said sympathetically, and he sounded as if he actually meant it. Samael had nothing against his other Heavenly brethren, but most of them that remained—not all, but most—had been more focused on mourning Sariel’s Fall with him than comforting him. Granted, he appreciated those too—he hated being by himself, almost all the angels did in those days. Still, this was new and he rather liked it. “Still, shouldn’t you—surely you have other people who might be willing to offer comfort in situations like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well now, that simply won’t do.” The cherub scrambled off the wall and offered his hand to Samael. “Come on, it won’t hurt to introduce you to some new angels, will it?”

“That depends,” Samael said dryly, but he took his hand and followed along behind him in the direction of the library.

“Oh no,” Aziraphale said suddenly, letting go of Samael’s hand. “I forgot! I was supposed to report for duty—oh dear—oh my!” He turned to Samael. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m for guard duty in the Garden of Eden. I’m so sorry—just go to the library and tell Harahel Aziraphale sent you, and to get Raziel.”

“What?”

He had _just said_ he’d never been to the library before, he didn’t even really know what Harahel looked like! And what did Raziel have to do with anything?

“No time, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale dithered, producing a sword and flicking the flames on and off, as if to check them. “Just tell them Aziraphale sent you, and you’ll be alright. Good luck, Samael! God go with you!”

“Godspeed, Aziraphale,” Samael said softly, as his new friend hurried off in the direction of the gates.

Harahel’s library was somewhere in the third or fourth heaven. Samael turned inwards, and spread his dove-grey wings. He supposed he’d have to ask for directions when he got there.

* * *

** Two: Heaven’s Library, 4002 BC **

Samael laughed and bid Raziel goodbye as he left the library, shutting the door behind him. Unfortunately for him—well, her now—she’d gotten discorporated on Earth, and her new corporation was really very different from her first. Since he was the only one she knew with some kind of experience in the area, she’d called on him to help with her hair, which was about the same length and texture as Sariel’s had been, though a raven black where Sariel’s had been fiery red.

He’d spent God-knows-how-long staring at his ring and twisting it round and round his finger until he could push away enough of the pain to help Raziel with her hair.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone weeping.

Angelic hearing made it incredibly easy to pinpoint the source of the sound and trace it back, and Samael was glad he did when he recognised the figure curled up in the shadow of the library. “Aziraphale!”

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say, because Aziraphale looked up for a second and began scrambling out of his way. “Sam—Samael—”

“It’s alright,” Samael soothed, crouching next to Aziraphale and trying not to get the smoke from his flaming hair in anyone’s face. He wondered if his superiors would let him have a corporation without the burning hair. “You don’t have to talk, you know. I just thought you might want company.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” the angel said gratefully. The Power shrugged, brushing his shoulder comfortingly against Aziraphale’s and looking out at the fields of Heaven.

If he remembered right, Aziraphale had been assigned to guard the Eastern Gate of Eden. Samael didn’t know whether or not that was supposed to be an honour, but Aziraphale had been excited about it. Yet here he was, crying in the shelter of the library, very pointedly not on Earth. Samael tried to put the whole thing out of his mind, because if Aziraphale wasn’t telling, he wasn’t telling, and the Power was a very curious creature.

Eventually Aziraphale muffled a sob in the sleeve of his robe and sat up. “They took my wings,” he said miserably, manifesting his wings and letting them droop so they were suspended just above Samael’s lap.

His—

His—

They took his—

Samael stared. Aziraphale’s secondary pair of wings was entirely missing. One half of the huge white primary pair rested on Samael’s knees, the other half trailing forlornly in the grass, but the smaller pair that identified a cherub by sight was just—gone. “Aziraphale...” he breathed, horrified. 

An angel’s wings were one of their most treasured marks. Each pair of wings, regardless of whether they belonged to the same angel, was unique; beneath the secondary colour of white that divinity lent them was a pattern of colours seen on no other pair. Things that caused an angel to lose even one wing were tragic, not only because they were usually excruciatingly painful, they required the loss of something inexpressibly precious. Losing a pair of wings—even a secondary pair, or, if you were a seraph, a tertiary pair—was like losing your voice or your sight: you _could_ function without it, but you’d really rather not. 

Samael itched to comfort Aziraphale, but what could he do? “What... _happened?_ ”

“I got demoted,” Aziraphale whispered. He twisted a bit so Samael could see the insignia at the base of his only remaining pair of wings.

The insignia of a principality.

“Oh,” was all Samael could think to say. “Oh.” The concept of demotion branded itself into his mind, frightening and suddenly _real._ “What for?”

“You’ve heard of the Fall of Man?”

“Yes, what of it?” Samael had a sinking feeling it was related to Aziraphale’s guard post at the Eastern Gate.

“It was I who let the Serpent in.” Aziraphale said it like he was waiting to be judged.

Samael would be lying if he said that a part of him didn’t recoil and cringe at the thought of Aziraphale looking at a serpent in the grass and judging him worthy to enter the Garden touched by God’s favour, or that a part of him didn’t wonder why, or that a part of him didn’t huff with resentment and wonder why _he_ was the one the angels looked at with suspicion when clearly Aziraphale had worse judgement.

Samael _was_ still an angel. He was better than that.

But Samael looked down at the bare spot where Aziraphale’s secondary pair of wings should be, and remembered how this cherub—this _principality_ , now—had sat with the angel of destruction on the outer wall of Heaven just because he looked lonely. He himself had never had a secondary pair of wings, but the space just under his pair tingled in sympathy. “What happened?” he said again, encouraging, coaxing. 

“Ariel took me up to Barachiel, but she left. It was Barachiel and Seraphiel who…” Aziraphale waved his hand vaguely in the direction of his own back.

“Did they take your sword too?”

Aziraphale coloured. “I—I—I lost it.”

“You _what?_ ”

“I lost my sword.”

“You lost your sword,” Samael repeated, uncomprehending. “One of the four seraphic blades, forged before the Fall. One of the only angelic weapons in the universe with enough divinity to permanently kill a demon. _That_ sword. You lost it?”

“…yes,” Aziraphale murmured, as if he was trying very hard not to be heard.

An alien streak of red-hot fire ran up Samael’s body from his stomach to his chest, a ball of _something_ that cried out for someone to hurt in place of him—for someone to feel the sadness and loneliness and emptiness Samael still felt, and why not let that someone be Aziraphale? Aziraphale, who had enabled the Serpent of Eden to make humanity Fall. Aziraphale, who had lost one of Heaven’s treasures and safeguards against Hell.

Then he took another look at Aziraphale and saw himself reflected there.

(Samael sitting on the wall of Heaven; Aziraphale curling up in the library’s shadow.)

(Samael, who was the only angel with hair tainted by hellfire; Aziraphale, who was the only angel to have been demoted.)

(Samael reaching out a wing to wrap around Sariel only to realise she wasn’t there; Aziraphale feeling the absence of his wings every time he moved.)

Besides, hadn’t it been Aziraphale who helped him find more things to fill that void?

“May I?” Samael asked, indicating the wings. Aziraphale hesitated, but nodded, turning away.

The poor things had clearly been neglected since their owner had lost their fellows. Samael immersed himself in the task of straightening and cleaning the iridescent feathers on Aziraphale’s wing. There was dust stuck between the pinions that Samael had to dig out with his fingernails and shake away. He wished he had the proper tools (a brush, for one; there was a fine coat of dust over everything his hands simply couldn’t take off), but the main point of it was to help Aziraphale feel better about his wings.

Once he felt like he’d done all he could for the right wing, he stood up, ducked under the left wing, pulled it into his lap, and began on that one.

Aziraphale merely watched him, bemused.

When he was finished, Samael felt a little stupid. It wasn’t like the pain of being demoted—of losing a pair of wings—of failing in an essential duty—would go away just because of what he’d done. The angelic part of him, though, insisted that even if the pain never went away completely, Samael had at least done something to help. Even if he never saw Aziraphale again, that bit of him declared, he would remember the first burn of resentment and the first warmth of compassion that Samael had ever truly felt.

Aziraphale’s crystal blue eyes gazed at nothing in particular for a long time after that, until finally the principality rubbed his eyes and stood up. A gleam of mischief came into them then, forming a thin film over the uneasiness. “I’ll show you a bit of the new book I’m writing if you can beat me to Barakiel’s fountain.”

Samael stood up and spread his own wings. “You’re on.”

* * *

** Three: England, 1349 **

A musty sigh issued from underneath Azrael’s cowl. THIS IS WHY I HATE PLAGUES.

Samael couldn’t have agreed more. He’d lost count after Portugal, honestly.

He was tagging along on what was mostly considered Azrael’s assignment because there was destruction going on too, and absolute sodding _tons_ of decay. It was his department, even if it wasn’t, strictly speaking, his mission. Lots of houses being boarded up and burned, fields being razed by the blazing houses, and so on and so forth. The dead were piling up in the plains, buried in a deep pit then covered over with a layer of earth that would be used as a bed by the next pile of dead bodies. The smell of pestilence was unmistakable.

Samael hovered above the ground that bore the infected animals and humans, but not above winds that carried the stench of sickness and death. He’d had the bad luck to lose his original corporation to the Black Death a year ago through recklessness, and his new one had ash-grey hair instead of (literally) flaming red, which didn’t help to soften his grim expression.

His companion sighed again. RATHER LARGE GROUP IN NORWAY INCOMING. I WILL GO TO EASE THEIR WAY. WAIT HERE UNTIL I RETURN.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he replied flatly.

TALK ABOUT A RUSH, Azrael said crossly. They spread their wings—which had never been quite the same after their short bout of madness following the Fall—and took off.

Samael scowled some more.

The bloody fourteenth century. It was fine, if a bit backwards, but of course it was the Dark Ages and someone had to go and throw in the sodding bubonic plague. Bloody Pestilence. The Horseperson was likely very happy, and poor Raphael very busy. Samael didn’t like it. (He didn’t hate it, if only because angels don’t hate.)

Granted, he kept company with a Horseperson semi-regularly, but Azrael—or, as they were referred to by people who feared them, Death—was different.

He had to trust God was sticking to the Plan and what was best for everyone. He was an angel, that wasn’t too hard, was it? Except—Samael had never felt much of an attachment to humanity, but even _his_ heart wrenched at seeing men and women bury their lovers, their spouses, their children. Even he was moved by the sight of all these people carrying on despite the losses of family, friends, home, treasures, and everything that a human had ever waxed lyrical about.

It crept far, far too close to his loss of Sariel.

Lord above, he was _incredibly_ lucky Aziraphale had been around by the time he realised discorporation was inevitable. The principality had been able to take his ring up to Heaven so that Samael could retrieve it once he returned there.

And speaking of Heaven… his senses picked up divinity that was most certainly not human around a small church. Curiously, he shifted his weight a bit and glided lazily down to the ground in front of it.

There was a gentlemanly, kind-looking older man walking amongst the sick in the chapel, talking to them in a hushed, soothing tone. Samael landed and folded his wings, making sure the cloaking spell that hid him from human eyes still held. He wasn’t completely unaware of how unusual white irises were, let alone silver wings.

The man didn’t seem afraid of getting sick at all. He crouched beside the affected humans, tending to them, even touching them, as if they weren’t sick with the bubonic plague and were only a family member with a touch of the flu.

Samael knew who it was. The aura of divinity, the soft affection for humanity, the white-blond hair and refined mannerisms.

The Principality Aziraphale helped a young man with dark auburn hair to his feet and along out of the church. They were accosted by the most industrious priest, a man scarcely out of youth with brown hair and a kind voice. The angel talked to him briefly, and Samael considered going just a bit closer to bring them within earshot, but he decided that was an invasion of privacy.

Eventually the priest let them go, Aziraphale half-carried, half-dragged the motionless young man to the burial pit a ways back and a ways closer to Samael, but he didn’t put him inside. He laid him against a nearby tree instead, kneeling in front of him. Samael drifted closer, his curiosity piqued.

He was still too far away to hear anything they said, but Aziraphale laughed weakly at something the young man said as the latter began coughing violently. _The young man is dying, and Aziraphale knows him_.

He stood there, looking on as Aziraphale and the young man talked quietly, passing a flask back and forth, until the last bright rays of sun faded into twilight, along with the young man’s life.

He watched as the white-blond gentleman raised his eyes to the sky, where the stars were only starting to twinkle, then bowed his head, cradling the body of the young man, and wept.

Aziraphale the angel mourning his young man next to the burial pit, against a background of stars that were only starting to come out and a landscape marred by pestilence, beside a church filled with the dying, seemed to Samael the epitome of the things he himself had witnessed over the last few years on Earth. The angel grieved quietly well into the night, the faint sounds of his sobs reaching only Samael’s ears.

Azrael hadn’t returned yet, so the angel of destruction kept his vigil as well as the principality had kept his, watching over the pair with a sort of brotherly protectiveness and a sort of divine detachment.

Samael only spoke up when Aziraphale had laid the young man to rest in the burial pit. _No family to bury him, then, if Aziraphale buried him here._ “Good evening, Aziraphale.”

To his credit, Aziraphale didn’t startle, even a little bit. “Good evening, Samael,” he replied, sounding as though there was very little good he found in it.

They stood there, looking at each other, until Samael sighed. “Bloody bubonic plague, I see.”

Aziraphale looked at him strangely.

“Even an angel of destruction has a conscience,” said Samael, misunderstanding.

“No, no, that’s not it,” Aziraphale said. “Only… well, what are you doing here, in England? Instead of—Norway or somewhere more interesting.”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Offering my condolences, I suppose.” His eyes flicked towards the pit.

Aziraphale bit his lip. “Thank you, I suppose.” Samael wasn’t sure if that was meant to be sarcastic or not. “He was young yet, he should have lived for a long time.” He sighed, his light blue eyes drifting downwards. “The next fifty years will be dull without him.”

“You didn’t really think he would live that long, would you?” Samael asked bleakly, gesturing at their surroundings. In a land so tainted by disease and desperation, Samael felt the purity of even his destructive angelic self keenly.

“None of them do,” said the principality, quietly.

“But you love them.”

“But I love them.”

“ _Why?_ ” There was something about this whole business that Samael wanted to understand. Humans were transient and fleeting and so ephemeral—how did it make sense to get attached to one human out of four hundred and fifty million and then mourn them for fifty years while other humans walked the Earth in their place?

Aziraphale screwed up his face. “I—I can’t quite explain, dear boy,” he said.

Samael sat down on a convenient tree stump. “I have all the time in the world. And you have fifty years.”

“Come along, then,” Aziraphale said. “You can help me with the humans while we talk.”

“But—”

“Oh, never mind the plague! You and I don't have to be affected by it, anyway. You can just make it so it doesn’t get on you.” Aziraphale waved his hand and began walking back to the chapel. Samael spent only a minute in silent debate before stumbling after him, trailing in his wake like a lion following a lamb.

“Who was he?”

The white-blond angel turned. “Who?”

“Your friend. The young man. What was his name?”

The principality almost looked relieved. “His name was James,” he replied, before beckoning Samael forward.

* * *

** Four: London, 1892 **

Samael wandered into the bookshop at one corner of a block in Soho, and was immediately met with, “I’m dreadfully sorry, but we’re closed.” Then a sound of surprise and disgust. “Please, don’t bring cigarettes in here. It ruins the books.”

“I can’t help it,” Samael retorted waspishly. The Industrial Revolution was making Pestilence’s brat of an apprentice very, very happy and Samael increasingly irritable. The smoke and grime of England, where he was stationed for the time being, made him long for the purity of Heaven and the emerald green of the grass (and Raphael’s eyes).

He’d figured out about a decade ago that the strange, not-quite-leafy smoke scent that was blended into his aura was in fact cigarette smoke. He didn’t smoke, of course, but he sounded and smelled like he did.

“Is that you, Samael?” A curly white-blond head emerged from behind the till.

“Who else would it be?” Samael asked wearily, trying to dim his aura for Aziraphale’s sake.

He twisted the ouroboros ring on his finger crossly. It had become something of a habit.

“What’s going on?” the principality queried nervously.

Samael put his palms up to show he was no threat. He might not particularly like humanity at the moment and he might not particularly approve of Aziraphale’s lifestyle, but he loved his fellow angel—the sort of love most angels would consider _love_ and Aziraphale _like—_ and he would keep those thoughts away from him. “There’s going to be a… an audit, of sorts. Shortly.”

The expression on Aziraphale’s face said, _Heaven says ‘shortly’ and means almost ten months._ Since when was ten months long for Aziraphale?

“I’m here unofficially, as per Raphael’s instructions, to tell you that Raphael isn’t on the team this time.”

Aziraphale paled. Samael frowned, before suddenly intuiting, quite by accident, that Raphael was by far the nicest archangel, and the others could be surprisingly ruthless in the forwarding of their cause. He himself didn’t hang around Heaven, much preferring to be out among the stars and the Earth. Although England didn’t hold much appeal for him at the moment, there was always someplace else. And that was the thing. Samael was, in the chain of command, superior to Aziraphale and directly subordinate to the dominions. _He_ didn’t have to deal with Gabriel.

That boded ill for the treatment that the principalities—and especially this principality—received at the hands of Heaven.

He promptly shied away from that thought. He was now in the realm of insubordination, and that wasn’t an angelic thing. And Samael _was_ an angel.

…A curious angel.

A curious angel who did not have any idea how a bell had rung over his head as he entered the shop.

And now that he had done what he’d come to do, he looked pleadingly at Aziraphale and asked, “Might I have a look around?”

Aziraphale looked pleasantly surprised, but a wary sort of pleasantly surprised. “Go ahead. You may ask me if you don’t understand anything. Just don’t touch the books and don’t break anything.”

Samael nodded solemnly, then twisted to have a glance at the door mechanism. “How does that work?” he asked Aziraphale, pointing at the little bell suspended on a bar some distance from the doorsill.

An afternoon was spent thus, and Samael learned, among other things, how shelves were constructed, how books were printed, why paint was a thing, why wood was polished, how teakettles functioned, why the flavour of tea seeped into the water even when the leaves never left the bag, and why dust just seemed to be everywhere even when there were no collapsing buildings or such. He learned how to put a glamour over his irises so they appeared a warm brown instead of their frosty white threaded with silver.

He learned that Aziraphale was learning a few ‘magic’ tricks (“As entertainment, you understand,” Aziraphale said) and witnessed quite a few of them. Of course, he didn’t learn how they were done, no matter how much he begged (Raphael would’ve loved to see them).

He learned that it was humanity that had implemented these processes to make the world he was now standing in. And if some of his faith in the race of creatures that God loved so much was restored by way of this, that wasn’t for anyone to know—let alone him.

Of course, the sun went down on him there.

“Did you want to stay for supper?” Aziraphale asked, wiping away a tear of laughter from his eyes after Samael related a story involving himself, Raziel, Raphael, Camael, and a name mix-up.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what supper is?” Aziraphale stared at him as if he’d grown another head.

“I’ve only picked up some context by being around humans for a while,” Samael admitted. “I mean, I know it’s a ritual that they tend to do in groups at this time of day, but otherwise…” He gestured helplessly.

“Oh dear, that simply won’t do,” the principality declared, leading the other angel. Samael noted that while it was cluttered and there was a thin layer of dust on some things, the space was well-loved and furnished with some care. Aziraphale darted towards his coat, but once he had touched it he flinched away from it as if it had burned him. He stood there rather forlornly for a second, looking at his coat. “No, I suppose not.”

Samael had sense and compassion enough not to ask. There was a pair of tinted glasses on the desk that wouldn’t fit Aziraphale’s head, and they weren’t Aziraphale’s style anyway.

Samael was not to know that what Aziraphale served him would barely qualify as supper to other humans, since he’d never had supper himself before. He frowned at the plate of something dark red with lighter streaks and something light brown that was set in front of him. “What are those?”

“The red object is bacon and the brown is bread. They’re food.”

“Food?”

Aziraphale chuckled to himself, likely at the thought that Samael of all angels would want a lesson on food. “Humans must, er, how to put this— _ingest matter_ for their survival, you see. They have special, er, systems in their bodies that turn food into energy so they can keep going. Our energy comes directly from Heaven, so _we_ don’t need to eat, but it’s really quite a pleasurable thing to do.”

“Why?” Samael asked, warily eyeing the plate in front of him. He poked the bacon shyly, half-expecting it to jump up and bite him. 

“Humans _have_ to eat, but they thought, why not make it enjoyable? So they add—er, bits of plant they call herbs and some other odds and ends called seasonings to make the food appeal to their taste buds. You have them too, you just don’t use them to taste food most of the time.”

Samael poked again at the bacon. It _felt_ like it was pig once, but it didn’t really look like the inside of a pig… “They… burn the pig matter?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And what about this?” Samael poked the bread. He was honestly surprised it didn’t do anything more than slide down his plate.

“Sometimes it’s more complicated than just cutting up an animal or a vegetable and putting it on a fire with—with herbs and such,” Aziraphale explained brightly. “Humans use a kind of fungus to make bread fluffy and full of air bubbles that make it soft. There are—actually there are a lot of types of bread, but this type has a fungus—called yeast—in it. Come on, take a bite.”

“How?” Samael asked blankly.

“You know how bites work, surely?” Samael nodded. “Then bite the bread and use your teeth to tear off a piece.” Aziraphale demonstrated.

The feeling of bread in his mouth was strange, and a teensy bit disgusting for someone who had never eaten before, but the flavour wasn’t unpleasant and the texture was nice.

“Now,” said Aziraphale around the food in his mouth, skipping the bit of etiquette that said doing so was rude in favor of a demonstration, “use your teeth again and just sort of—open and close your jaws so you cut up the bread.”

Samael’s bread missed his teeth a few times, honestly, and Aziraphale told him it was considered polite to chew (as this motion was called) with one’s mouth closed so the food didn’t fall out. Eventually, though, the bread in his teeth was sort-of-bread-flavoured mush, and he looked to Aziraphale for what to do next.

“Then you swallow it. Just—push it to the back of your mouth, and your throat will do the rest.”

Samael did as instructed, and then found his mouth quite suddenly not full of bread anymore. “That was… new.”

“I thought it would be best to give you simple things first, but bread is usually eaten with other things like jam and butter to give it more flavour.” Aziraphale grinned at him. “Isn’t it clever?”

“It rather is,” Samael agreed, taking a bit of the bacon next. It was a bit tougher than the bread, but it had quite a different taste, and it made a nice sound in his mouth while his teeth tore it up—while he _chewed it._ Once he had swallowed that, he said, “I didn’t really understand the concept of food before now, but I think—I think… I might rather like it.”

“That’s wonderful!” Aziraphale exclaimed happily. “And just think—due to the diversity of edible matter—stuff that humans can eat safely—all over the world, different cultures have different types of food, and a lot of foreigners, particularly Eastern ones, complain about English food being bland.” His eyes twinkled.

“English food is _bland?_ ” Samael echoed blankly. He understood that ‘bland’ meant ‘tasteless’, and he was unable to reconcile that word with the food in front of him. “But I like it!”

“You’re allowed to like it,” Aziraphale assured him, grinning from ear to ear. Samael smiled shyly back. Perhaps now he understood why supper was usually a communal thing. He would see if Raphael would agree to a meal with him when he got back to Heaven. Not necessarily supper.

Aziraphale’s blue eyes sparkled at him from behind the rim of his cup. “Still, it doesn’t hurt to try other things. Just wait until you have crepes!”

* * *

** Five: London, 1941 **

_Lord, why is it always me?_ Samael lamented softly, hovering over the city of London. Fire burned around it, the distant booms and cracks of German incendiary bombs ripping through the terror-soaked air. Acrid smoke misted the entire city like some grim parody of a mysterious island paradise. Samael was in his element, literally, and he actually rather liked being covered in soot and ash. What he liked rather less, however, was the sight of the figures moving around in the city—men and women and children, watching from balconies and attic windows as a war they didn’t know everything about ravaged their homes and their memories.

Samael shivered, but not because of any sort of chill. His hair was dusted with ash, and he forced himself to keep his dirty-white eyes trained on the city. His silvery wings kept him aloft as he clenched his fists, willing his power to dim.

The smell of copper and steel drew his eyes to the ground, where he saw a red head of hair make its way through London’s burning streets. _War._

Samael was the destroyer. He and War had met many times before.

There was an overturned vehicle in the street, and a crying human beside it. There were heaps of rubble and toppled trees with the occasional silent body. There was an entire family huddled in the roofless ruins of something that might’ve been a shed, trying to share a blanket that was so small it would barely have covered the youngest, a child of about six.

And this wasn’t even Samael’s doing.

If he’d had his way, London would’ve been nothing but rubble days ago, and all the humans in the city sent to their Maker before the first hour was over. No, this was human war—long and arduous and full of suffering—and wasn’t that ironic?

He thought grimly that it might have something to do with the fact that they had less time to live with the consequences.

The all-clear siren wailed.

Samael could barely convince his wings to get him safely to the ground before giving out. His knees handed in a form of leave as well, and he collapsed to the pavement, breath coming in gasps and small clouds of mist. This was the fourth week of the bombing, and he couldn’t hold his own power at bay forever. Not continuously, at any rate.

He and Sariel could have taken shifts, taking over for each other so they could both rest. They might have had different jurisdictions, but really, this kind of thing fell into both of them. _Two sides of the same coin_ , she’d said once. He’d laughed, then. He agreed, now.

His ring was the only part of his outfit that was black to begin with. Even his hair was dull black with soot now. He hadn’t had enough presence of mind to miracle himself clean for _days._

“This way!”

He looked up.

A hand emerged from the smoky mist, and then a wrist, wearing a blue armband, and then a whole person, leading a pair of young women, one of whom carried a little boy. Like Samael, the person was streaked with ash; the colour of their clothes might’ve been something other than black, once, but they were too singed and sooty to know what it was. This was where what the young women and any passers-by might have seen and what Samael saw diverged: Samael saw two ash-streaked, singed white wings arched protectively over the three survivors, the other two winched in to the angel’s side.

The angel’s eyes darted around, and met Samael’s.

“Keep going!” they shouted. “It’s not far!” Their fingers glowed with faint green light as they directed the young women by their shoulders; as they peeled away, they briefly touched the forehead of the boy. Then they ran towards Samael.

“Sam, God Almighty, I didn’t think—”

“I’m sorry,” Samael blurted out. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I didn’t use my head; I don’t even know where my brain is at this point—”

Raphael held up a hand. “There’s no need.” They stopped in front of Samael, barely coming up to his chin, and shrugged. The bitterness of their argument hung in the air with the smoke, and the power ached at the weariness in the emerald eyes.

“Archangel, are you alright?”

Slowly, Raphael leaned forward until their face rested on Samael’s chest. “Trees of Eden, I’ve never been more swamped in my life. Fucking nuclear warheads.”

“So _that’s_ what they’re called!” Samael cried, momentarily forgetting himself.

There was a tired chuckle from around his sternum, and then everything was alright again. He took the arm with the band on it and tapped it. Raphael nodded, and yawned.

“Human habits,” he teased him, rubbing away what ash he could from the slender, dextrous hand he held. Not that he was doing much good, since his hand was ashy to begin with. “What’s that one an indicator of?”

“Need of sleep,” Raphael said, yawning again, raising his face so his bleary eyes blinked languorously up at Samael.

“How does that work, then?”

“Honestly, I don’t know the logistics either, but it’s apparently also a measure of boredom or fatigue. And it’s contagious.” The other angel’s words were slurred, but not in a drunk way. It was strange to Samael, but he had a feeling it had something to do with yawning.

“What?” Sure enough, Samael yawned as well. “Oh, that’s what you mean. Do you think you can bounce a yawn back and forth like kids playing catch?”

“Quite possibly.” Disappointingly, the archangel didn’t yawn again and instead seemed to forgo talking entirely. His breathing evened and his eyes slid shut.

“Archangel?”

He blinked rapidly. “Oops. D’you mind if you sit down and I can take a nap on you for a second? I’m overflowing with prayers for healing at the moment and I could really… use….”

“As you wish,” Samael said, very much awake, and sat down against the wall of the nearest building—a church, as the pleasant hum along his back confirmed. Raphael seemed quite content to use one of his knees as a head-rest, and—what was the term?— _dozed off_ immediately. Proximity to both Raphael and a church began to have effect on Samael – his wings gradually ached less like Hell and more like Purgatory, his throat cleared, and his bone-deep fatigue began to fade.

The air raid sirens howled, somewhere in the distance. The East End, maybe?

Samael’s vigil continued, his wings covering Raphael’s sleeping form.

He didn’t understand sleep, but he did understand that it left Raphael vulnerable, and that was a gap he could fill. He watched the smoke eddy across the dark grey sky and prayed that this would end soon. It had to, didn’t it? The mind-numbing agony, the heart-breaking hope—surely it had to end. _Nothing can last for eternity._ He twisted the ouroboros ring. _I know that better than most._

A wave of force rumbled up his spine. Then another, closer one. Another, again closer.

“Raphael…”

The Archangel slept on, blissfully unaware of what Samael now beheld with horror: German bombers, dropping bombs four hundred, two hundred, seventy metres from them.

His first thought was, _I can’t fly with Raphael on my lap._ His second: _Can I carry him instead?_

“Raphael! Wake up!” Nothing. And the clouds of fire crept closer with every second—

He tugged Raphael into a ball as best he could and curled around him, trying to arrange his wings in a fashion that would protect both of them as much as possible. _Oh boy, if I get discorporated there’s going to be paperwork,_ Samael thought. _Lord, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not._

When the ringing in his ears stopped, Samael heard, “Little demonic miracle of my own… Lift home?”

A demon.

Samael tried to rouse himself. He _was_ an angel, and his job wasn’t just destruction, it was also thwarting demons. It was probably the demon’s fault that the German bombers had gone here instead of the East End, where the sirens had sounded and people had evacuated. Samael growled softly to himself; now Raphael would have even more work piled on top of what he had. But that was a demon: inconsiderate.

“Actually, my dear, I think—I think it would be best if I walked instead.” Samael stiffened. He knew that voice. He hadn’t heard it since the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, but he knew it. It sounded dreadfully awkward and innocently apologetic all at once, idiosyncratic of a very specific—

“You sure, angel?” …angel.

“Well—well, why don’t you wait in the car? I’ll join you in a bit.”

The voice that replied was uncertain, but not at all pressing. “Alright then.” Footsteps led away from the ruins, in the opposite direction from where Samael and Raphael were, where the power knew there was a side street that turned in to the church.

Samael cautiously unfurled his wings from around himself, and checked Raphael. Still unconscious, though he couldn’t tell if he had just continued sleeping or had fainted. Not wounded, as far as could be ascertained. Neither was he, miraculously. He breathed a sigh of relief, the breath after that bringing the scent of smoke, peppermint, and something familiar in a way that made his heart ache. What was it?

He set Raphael down and got to his feet, carefully protecting the archangel’s head from the bits of stone and glass everywhere.

He raised his head and saw exactly the angel he was expecting to see. “Aziraphale,” he said, his voice carrying a note of warning, even as he gently nudged Raphael into a position where he could pick him up.

The angel was already stepping toward him, a grim expression on his face, as out of place as it might look. “Samael. I see it’s business as usual?”

“What are you doing, talking to a demon?” Samael hissed. “And what is a demon doing on consecrated ground?” His hands moved while he was talking, slowly pulling Raphael upwards into a practical carry. It was rather hard to look intimidating with a slim archangel of healing nestling against your front, but Samael managed it.

Aziraphale pointedly ignored the unconscious angel. “Oh—standard thwarting, that’s all,” he dithered. It unnerved Samael slightly; Aziraphale hadn't been so agitated around him in centuries—more evidence that there was something to be found here. “Cr—that is, the demon –- was –- I was leading him into a—you know…”

“Then why isn't he dead yet?” Something felt different, felt wrong, felt _off_. Aziraphale was clutching a bag like it was his life, and Samael had no doubt that was what the demon had protected with his ‘little demonic miracle’. It was kindness was what it was, and it made Samael hesitate.

In his arms, Raphael stirred. Samael looked down to see his nose wrinkle and his emerald eyes crack open. “S’okay, Sami,” he slurred sleepily and with effort. “Crowley’s ‘kay. No—no sss-miting.”

“Raphael, it’s a _demon_ —”

“No!”

Samael wouldn’t deny the feeling of relief at the thought of having the responsibility taken off his shoulders. He still had nightmares of Sodom and Gomorrah and had been successful in avoiding doing an outright smiting again so far. If he caved now, he was obeying the order of a superior, never mind that the superior was probably half-delirious.

Aziraphale abruptly reminded Samael of his presence. “Are—are they alright?”

“Probably overtaxed himself,” the power said heavily, trying not to jostle the archangel too much as he hoisted him a bit higher. Raphael mumbled something that sounded like “Aziraphale”, turned over, and promptly buried his face in Samael’s ruined shirt, nuzzling at Samael’s chest. The ash-haired angel blushed quite without intending to.

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale stood there for a second, clutching his bag, before shaking his head and asking, “Can you fly, Samael?”

“Not to Heaven, not while carrying Raphael,” he answered truthfully. His wings had been pushed to the limit already, these past weeks. “And he must go to Heaven to recover.”

“Not to Heaven,” the principality agreed. “Er, look, Crowley was going to take me home to my Soho bookshop—you remember, Samael—so if you’d just come with me I’m sure I can fix at least you enough to get up to Heaven.” He made the offer like it was physically painful to make.

Samael considered it. He wasn’t sure that, as an angel, he should be hanging around Aziraphale right now, or that Aziraphale wasn’t in league with the demon. He wasn’t sure just how far gone Raphael’s burnout went. He wasn’t sure he wasn’t being duped by everyone involved, right now.

Well, faith, hope, and charity, right?

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were ethereal blue, bright in the grey darkness of the London Blitz. “You’ll have to fly behind the car, I’m afraid.”

* * *

** Plus One: St. James’s Park, 1990 **

“They _what_?” Samael’s eyes were the size of coins.

YOU HEARD ME.

“And then Gabriel, Sandalphon, and Uriel did _what_?”

I SAID IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Azrael’s tone was a trifle testy, but Samael knew that they were almost as worried as he was. If the Archangels—or some of them, anyway—were going around conducting trial by hellfire without any other type of trial, Heaven had come to dark days indeed.

He rubbed his thumb over his ouroboros ring once, nervously, shifting his wings minutely. “Where did you hear that?”

GABRIEL HIMSELF INFORMED ME THAT THE PRINCIPALITY AZIRAPHALE IS NOT TO BE TROUBLED. Beneath Azrael’s cowl their star-like eyes gave a glimmer of amusement. I AM DEATH. HE TOLD ME HOW IT CAME TO BE DECIDED.

“And—and Aziraphale survived?”

HE LIVES.

Still stunned, Samael blinked at his friend. Aziraphale had survived hellfire. No angel had ever survived hellfire, save Samael himself, and that was through the last-minute intervention of an almost-demon. No one had helped Aziraphale, and apparently he’d walked away and back to his station—nay, his _home—_ on Earth completely unharmed, not even singed.

The power remembered the crackle of his burning hair and his only thought was in all capitals, trailed by about fifty question and exclamation marks. For the sake of grammatical correctness, those attributes have been removed: _How?!_

“I’m going to go see if he’s alright,” Samael said, opening and flexing his wings.

IS THAT WISE?

He shrugged. “As the humans say, _fuck it._ ” He pushed off and circled about for a bit before heading for the edge of Heaven and diving straight down. He was on Earth in no time, in England in even less, and in Soho in less than a wingbeat.

He burst into the bookshop and smacked into a wall of scent that almost knocked him off his feet.

The most superficial layer was one of smoke—a memory that never happened, probably some fire damage in the Apocalypse-That-Never-Was. The next, a layer of dust, sat on the place unevenly, a quarter inch thick in some places and absent altogether in others. Samael unconsciously thumbed his ring as he took in the scent that lay underneath, something that wrapped itself around him and breathed itself into his body, entwining with his soul, his essence, his very self.

He welcomed it, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. It snuggled like home in his chest, and with a flash of nostalgia so sharp you could cut your finger on it, he remembered what Heaven was like before the Fall. To his surprise, alongside the nostalgia came a bittersweet taste.

Heaven had been so young, and so bright, and yet…

He wouldn’t trade what he had now for anything in the world—anything in the universe, in all of time. He wouldn’t even trade it for Sariel.

The nebulous feelings that had puffed along quite blithely within him since the Fall suddenly began pulling together very fast, and with a tiny, tiny _whoomph_ a star shone out where one hadn’t been before. It was like putting on glasses when you never even knew you needed them. The entire world came into brilliant, vibrant focus, and you’d never realised until now how blurry it had become.

In an instant, the meaning of thousands of split-second pauses and cautious glances made itself known, along with the diamond certainty that had she stayed in Heaven, with him, Sariel would have been driven mad.

These thoughts smelled like old and new books and the scent of a perfect library, like ink on the page and ink on your pen. So _this_ was why Aziraphale loved the Earth so much. Samael looked around the cluttered, lively bookshop and near trembled at the _life_ in it.

He didn’t love the Earth, or humanity, or free will. But the new star blazing within him laughed and said he would, someday. He was sure it was right.

And speaking of humanity—

Where was its guardian, its champion? _Where was Aziraphale?_

Samael frowned. The angelic, bibliophilic aura of Aziraphale had imbued everything here with its idiosyncratic smell, but it was particle-deep, the kind of ingrained familiarity that comes with decades, centuries, of use—nay, of love. The smoke was no one’s aura but his own. Which left…

The infernal taint was decidedly newer, and rested on top of a trail of things—the floor from here to the till, a book here and there at the display window. Clearly, something demonic had passed through and subjected the place to an inspection. Samael only hoped nothing was missing. Aziraphale loved books, and these books in particular if he wasn’t mistaken.

The power bared his teeth as he finally matched the scent.

That demon. The demon from 1941 and his car.

God save him, if he had hurt Aziraphale…

Samael turned and rushed out of the bookshop, the bell tinkling and dust motes dancing behind him.

The demon had clearly tried not to leave a trail, but Samael was determined, and the wind, friend of decay, saw no reason not to help him. He managed to pick up the trail every time he lost it, and he lost it thrice in total. Finally, he found himself in a somewhat familiar part of London near a place called St. James’s Park.

And there was Aziraphale.

Samael darted forward and inserted himself in Aziraphale’s path and quickly held out his empty hands. “Peace, Aziraphale,” he said, harsher than he intended. The other angel’s aura was all _off—_ it was the right shape, and general colour, if auras could be said to have colour, and smell, but there was something very, very wrong about it. Something had changed. Something fundamental. “It’s not official business.”

The principality didn’t _say_ the words “Do I know you?”, but he might as well have.

“It’s me!” he tried. If it were possible the fear in Aziraphale’s eyes _grew._ It cut him to the quick, and tamed his husky growl when he said, “It’s only me, Samael.”

Blink, blink. Then an expression best described as ‘dramatically enhanced surprise’. Those who know of an incident with a church and some Nazis will recognise this face. Aziraphale swallowed and began to inch away. Samael caught his arm. “No, really, are you alright? I heard about the—the hellfire.”

Aziraphale blinked at him in dismay.

He grasped for words and found nothing but air. “Look, I—for all that it’s worth, I think—I don’t think they were thinking straight when they did that to you. I—you still have an ally in Heaven, if you need it. A friend, if you will.”

The principality looked straight _down,_ as if looking for something, and found the black ring encircling his finger. “You—I’ve never noticed that ring before,” he choked, his voice strained.

“What do you mean? I’ve always had it.” _Not always._ “Since before the Fall, anyway.” Sometimes, Samael reflected, even the cleverest angel of all could be incredibly unobservant. His own habit of twisting and thumbing it wasn’t exactly _subtle._

Aziraphale nodded mutely.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Samael pressed, just in case the _impossible_ man—because he was human, despite being, at least nominally, an angel—didn’t understand him. “I don’t care how you survived, as long as you did. If you ever need a favour that only another angel can grant, I’m sure Raphael and I would be happy to do it.”

“Raphael?”

“Last I heard they were considerably in your favour.” _Your name is literally Azi-Raphael, idiot. I don’t know how the Hell Gabriel got you in his jurisdiction, but it was no fault of yours or theirs._

Rather than looking relieved, Aziraphale looked even more strained. “J—Jolly good, yes. Absolutely amazing. Um. Great. Thanks ever so. I’ll be—I’ll be in touch.”

“See that you are.” Samael squeezed his shoulder. “I worry.”

Without giving himself time to think about Aziraphale’s reactions, he left. The strange, mixed-up scent lingered in his nose and his mind, the mingling of old books and cinnamon.

 _Cinnamon._ He stopped in his tracks. Why did that seem so familiar?

It was the scent in the bookshop, he realised. The infernal one. _Cinnamon, my God._

Before he could do something foolish like run off after the demon, shake him, and demand to know what he’d done with Aziraphale, something occurred to him.

The demon had been there in 1941. Raphael had told him he was alright. And if the demon had truly taken on Aziraphale’s shape, with enough time to stay in the bookshop, then it was almost certainly the demon that the Archangels had dragged up to Heaven.

Demons were immune to hellfire.

They must have known. They must have known what would happen and switched appearances. It was a small enough thing to cloak an aura—Samael himself had done it often—so it was no wonder no one had noticed. Even Azrael was still only an angel. It was an absolute _doozy_ and yet they managed to pull it off. He shook his head wonderingly.

He didn’t know what it meant, but he sure as Hell knew it was _something._ Something incredible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't noticed, two of the OCs in this fic have been headcanoned as Crowley's former angelic identity - Raphael is far more common than Samael, thanks to Tumblr, but I've seen one or two Samael!Crowley fics kicking around. That's probably what started this whole thing.
> 
> Samael is often described as the destroyer, the seducer, etc., and also often associated with Satan (not necessarily Lucifer, that's a whole other story) which is reflected here in both his assignment as the Power of destruction and his grey wings. I would imagine that the demon who was once known as Sariel would have dark grey wings, ever so much lighter than their fellow demons'.
> 
> EDIT 24/06/2019: edited for continuity.  
> EDIT 17/04/2020: edited so that the last few edits integrate better. also, those weird-ass em-dashes were driving me crazy, so I fixed them at last. if I missed any, feel free to tell me!


End file.
